Bar Harbor is the latest Maine community to join a modest but growing movement to overthrow the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that opened the way to almost unlimited corporate political spending. The Bar Harbor Town Council’s 7-0 vote for a resolution calling for curbing the flood of corporate money into ...

The percentages weren’t wrong. But they needed more explanation. When the Bangor Daily News reported recently that Washington County had the best crime-solving record in the state and Penobscot County had the worst, we could have done a better job providing context. That’s because percentages are easily altered by small ...

Editor’s note: This is the second of two parts. Marjorie McCaslin of Winslow stopped talking during the last few years of her life, as the Alzheimer’s disease worsened. But she still remembered how to sing. So her son, Bruce McCaslin, sang with her in the morning, afternoon and night. She ...

First of two parts. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and its resulting memory loss and behavior changes can be devastating for families caring for a loved one with the disease. There is no cure. Treatments are few and expensive. That’s why the launch of a national ...

It was not a surprise when Moody’s Investors Service lowered Maine’s rating outlook on some bonds recently. The problems the credit rating agency listed are familiar: The state is limited in its ability to meet unexpected shortfalls and its weak demographic profile may slow revenue growth in the future. Another ...

Too often, people purchasing wine, beer or liquor are either not asked for their licenses or their young age is overlooked. And most often the people selling alcohol to underage buyers are lower level employees, not the owners of an establishment. That’s a sign businesses can do more to educate ...

Maine and the country as a whole are closely divided on the subject of same-sex marriage. But polls show there is a growing percentage of advocates and shrinking percentage of opponents. As opinions shift and countries and states pass laws that allow gay couples to marry, the institution of marriage ...

Lights, camera … The Maine Legislature has voted on numerous bills; Hampden postal workers, Maine roads and coffee drinkers have received encouraging news; and reducing the income tax rate continues to stir debate. Here’s a summary of our thoughts on the last couple days of headlines: Yay Both the Maine ...

If you rent an apartment, your landlord should be keeping the place to a certain living standard. It should have working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, acceptable air quality, proper plumbing and safe electrical wiring. The heat should work and trash can’t be blocking the fire escape. Though apartment buildings ...

A bill that aims to reduce the income taxes Mainers pay is coming up for action by the Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs perhaps as early as Wednesday. While it seems like a reasonable idea on the surface to withhold less from people’s paychecks, the long-term plan of how ...

Don’t be put off by the name. The Advanced Structures and Composites Center at the University of Maine is improving your energy future. It constructed a first-in-the-nation laboratory designed to manufacture and test offshore wind turbines. It built the Offshore Wind Laboratory, in part, with $5 million in state bond ...

Would you choose to reduce services for children with mental illnesses or cut funding for Head Start, which serves low-income children? Or perhaps you would choose to eliminate Medicaid coverage for people of a certain eligibility status? These are some of the difficult questions facing lawmakers when they reconvene on ...

The Land for Maine’s Future program committed the last of its money last year. So, as lawmakers consider whether Maine should borrow money to pay for infrastructure and other projects, the lack of money for land acquisition should be a concern. Members of the Appropriations Committee have agreed to a ...

When Botswana’s first female high court judge, Unity Dow, gave a lecture at the University of Maine School of Law this spring, a woman in the audience asked her about a matter often not discussed in Maine: an international treaty concerning the rights of women. Specifically, she asked Dow how ...

The trend is clear: more and more people are supporting the right of gay couples to marry. Polls show that support for same-sex marriage has increased two or three percentage points each year since about 2004. Currently an average of about 50 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage rights, and ...

The U.S. Postal Service does not rely on tax dollars for its operation. Its revenues come from sales of products and postage. So, to an extent, it makes sense to not close small post offices: If you eliminate the services people and businesses are paying for, you eliminate revenue. But, ...

The Maine Republican Party may want to do things such as build an environment for job growth and improve students’ access to technical education, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the political platform it adopted at the GOP convention this weekend. That’s because, even though a committee worked for ...

Amid accusations of voter fraud, ballot contamination and violations of rules of order, the Maine Republican Party has an even larger problem to worry about after its convention this weekend: future elections. The Maine Republican State Convention was an opportunity not just to elect delegates to attend the national convention ...

The Maine and Nevada convention victories for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul mean at least six states will send Paul majorities to the national convention. This gives the Texas congressman a strong possibility of a prime-time appearance at the podium. Mitt Romney has 856 delegates, 288 shy of the number ...

If you’re on MaineCare or you’re a doctor or medical care provider, the computer problems at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services concern you because you rely in some way on the department’s ability to accurately process medical claims. If you live in Maine, you probably care about ...